


It’s All My Fault

by sorayume



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Chronic Pain, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Father-Son Relationship, Gaslighting, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27481939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorayume/pseuds/sorayume
Summary: Luke chooses to go with his Father during ESB, but something is wrong.Chronic Pain and Dark times.
Relationships: Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 25





	It’s All My Fault

It all started after he had accepted his Father’s hand. That fateful night on the spire in Cloud City. He had screamed no. He had wanted to refuse. To refute the fact he was his father’s son. But his heart had spoken and he knew he could not deny his destiny at his Father’s side. 

Giving his remaining hand to his father, he had expected further pain, further agony. Instead the dark lord had pulled Luke into his arms. Dwarfing him in a surprisingly loving embrace. “You are home my son” he had said “You are mine”

Everything since then had been a blur of medical procedures. The had installed a new hand, tended his wounds. The best droids the galaxy had to perform medical duties were provided. Long bacta soaks. Everything. Yet the pain Luke felt didn’t seem to ease.

Every day it was like the ache in his body was reflecting the ache in his soul for having left behind his friends and Master yoda. For choosing to accept Vader’s offer.

Today it was his shoulder, it ached in a dull way, like something was stuck under his shoulder bone, making it hard to move. The droids said it was psychosomatic. Maybe it was.

Darth Vader was coming back today, his Father! He had left Luke alone for weeks with the droids. He said he had business to attend to. It had been a long time. Luke was starting to worry about him. He had left him in his castle, this large dark place. He had left him with the 501st to guard him and promised to return. 

Luke was meditating. Allowing the force to flow through him. Breath in. Hold. Breath out. Hold. Breath. Breath. Breath! At times he found it hard to breath because of the pain shooting through him. At one such time he heard a breath where his should have been if he had not been disturbed by a lance of pain. A breath from a vocadorer! 

Spinning his head he saw him. Darth Vader. His first response was fear. His heart skipped a beat. Visions of his hand being sliced off, memories of Han and Leia’s pain lanced through him. He squashed those feelings. This was his destiny. He had committed to helping. He was doing the right thing. 

“Father.” He stated. Looking up at him. A slight smile curling the edge of his mouth.

“My Son.” 

“Um… Welcome… home?” Luke wondered if this place was really home? Was he following the path of fantasy he desired or did he really feel this place was his home? 

“Have you found rest?” 

The lack of emotions in Vader made it really hard for Luke to gauge the tone of Vader’s words. Was this casual or actual interest. “It has been pleasant. I feel mostly rested except….”

Vader stood staring down at him. Not saying a word. But his stance changed. It got a bit wider, like he was grounding himself, waiting for Luke to continue with whatever bad news he had. Would Vader believe him about these pains when the droid doctors did not? Or was it better to keep it to himself? Luke decided on the latter. 

“I… I miss them, my friends I mean.” Luke stared down at his hands not wanting to risk Vader seeing that he truly was miserable in more than one way.

“Your friends are traitors, criminals and murderers. You would do best to forget of them.”

Looking up in shock, Luke enthused “I can’t just stop loving my friends! They have been in my life for years, they are like my family! You can-“ He was cut off.

“I am your family Luke Skywalker. You would do well to remember that my young son. You will accept your fate by my side obediently, or else.” He emphasized Luke’s name in a way that felt dripping with ownership and desire. If Luke had not known better he could have felt it was almost sexual.

“I thought… because I agreed to… Oh I dunno that you would be nice to me…” he almost said it in a whisper near the end. He was low in confidence.

“I will train you. You will obey, we will defeat the Emperor.”

“I want to end the Em- AHHHHHH“ this time his words were cut off by a sharp pain. Like a laser bolt to his shoulder. Luke screamed in pain as his nerves reacted to the pulsing pain. It pounded into him, it overwhelmed his brain, he crumpled down into a fedal position. Moaning. A moment after it started it ended with just as little warning.” 

Blinking back tears and looking down at his shoulder to see what the wound looked like, he saw… nothing? Yes Nothing was there, what had happened. He gulped in a breath and looked up and gasped. “What happened!?”

Vader made no move to help him, tilting his mask down he placed his fists on his waist. “What happened? You have the audacity to ask *me*?! You were standing there complaining that you wanted friendship with criminals and then when told no you threw yourself into a fit. I may have been mistaken in my offering you the role as my Apprentice.”

“What!? I was NOT throwing a fit, I was in pain!?”

“I saw no indicators of anything causing you pain.”

“I… I have been hurting ever since…um… “

“Are you trying to suggest that the loss of a meer hand is causing you constant pain!? What do you know of LOSS OF LIMBS.” He roared, “I have no original limbs. NONE. You must brace through the pain. Your brain is imagining it. It is false.”

Dumbfounded Luke tried to stand up for himself. “Father… please! It hurt like nothing else. I am not making it up.”

“Your ‘friends’ have influenced you to be lacking in honor, you will be in the front helm during our next battle with them for this level of dishonesty. You will watch as these ‘friends’ die because they aren’t weak, as you are being.”

“No…. please! I am not a prisoner, I came because I believed you I… please please don’t do this! What can I do to please you? PLEASE leave them alone I will do anything. “

A new wave of pain started ripping through Luke, all he wanted to do was continue laying here, trying to move as little as possible as he felt his body feeling like it was being ripped apart. Through his tears of pain and sorrow at the horrible person his father was, he braced himself past the pain.

With a growl like gasp he pulled himself into a supplicant kneeling position. “Father, I apologize, I was wrong. Please accept me as your apprentice in exchange for the lives of my friends.” He grated out the words, they were not the words of his deep heart, but they were the words he must say. All his friends would be dead if he did not submit now and fully. This was his only chance. This was his fate. Through his submission he would save those he loved.

He heard several cycles of Vader’s respirator and then heard him stepping close. Not daring to look up from his submissive stance in fear that he would be thought impudent. Pain was lancing through him, growling into his bent knees and outstretched arms and shoulders. He felt a gloved hand embrace his chin and turn his tears eyes upward towards it. 

“So it will be, submit yourself to your training and to me and I will spare you the hunt of your friends, scum though they may be.”

Luke let out a breath he had not known he was holding. The pain lancing through his neck where it was bent upwards. 

“Yes…. Master” Luke said. The words feel like a finalizing blow on his soul and self. Like worse pain in their uttering was created, this time inside him overtaking the external pain as it all welled inside me and he slumped against his Father's hand, exhausted.

* * *

  
  
Time passed. The pain stayed. Luke felt weak. Every movement was hard. It had never been this way before. Sure he felt sore sometimes, he felt pain. But everyone feels pain now and again. That was normal. This was consistent. Consistent waves pain, or certain parts of him aching as though they had been wrenched in a grip.

He gritted his teeth and wore himself thin. Vader was a strict Master, a Master that kept him busy training at all times. If Luke messed up the disappointment would be so piercing. Expressed in silence. Vader had quickly learned the silence made Luke more obedient than yelling did much to Luke’s dismay. 

He always felt like he was disappointing his Father. All he wanted was some approval in this hellish life of pain. He knew his pain was unexplainable, psychosomatic they said. But every morning when he woke he would feel his body dragging behind his brain. Like a scrap of metal on a string behind a speeder it would move slower than he wanted it to. 

Thank goodness for the force. Luke started supplementing the force for his bodies inadequacies constantly. It made it harder to do other force things, but at least his body wasn’t falling over and shaking in the pain he felt. Sometimes when he let the force slip though he ended up in even more pain. Actual pain. His father would go silent and leave him when he got hurt, angry and disappointed that Luke had not been good enough.

Desperation was filling Luke, the day for his Father’s revolt against the Emperor was closing in and the pain refused to lessen. His hopes that he and his Father would grow a friendship, they seemed a fantasy. He was just a bloodline to his father, he must be. No matter how much Luke begged for help from the pains, he was met with disgust.

Vader thought he was lying. Was he lieing? Was this his brain fighting against him for leaving everything he believed? Was it how he was being punished by himself? He probably DID deserve it. He needed to be better. The danger to his friends would be fully over if he were by his Father’s side ruling the Empire. He could help protect the galaxy. If only he could fight this pain off. 

What was sleep? Luke rarely did it any more, even when he did he woke in the aching waves of pain. He would have muscles that didn’t fully respond and sobbing fits on the floor more and more when alone now. The force seemed to be sluggish as well, probably as exhausted as he was at its constant misuse. 

Yet the day to face the Emperor came. Luke put on his best “I am OK” grimace face and wore the clothing his Father had chosen for him. Each step felt like he was waltzing through daggers. The force was strong in his family. He would be strong enough. There was no other option. He was one with the Force. It carried him. To whatever destiny might bring.

* * *

Vader was exasperated by his child. The boy was much weaker than he ever expected. It was incomprehensible how behind in his training he was. It had taken too long. Months longer than he had originally planned, but finally the boy was ready. He wondered if it was his or Padme’s bloodline this slow physical adaptation was born of. 

He and the boy stepped out of the Elevator in the throne room of the Imperial Palace. Luke needed no bindings or control. He was submissive and obedient. He had finally become the Apprentice any Sith could desire… and yet. Yet something was off. He could not put his finger exactly on it. His son seemed pained to be here, like being with his Father hurt him. Every time he cried about the phantom pains, Vader was filled with shame and anger and had to leave. He had hurt the boy's mind so much that he thought he was in pain. Of course he was not, but knowing the emotional need for attention was so strong in the boy that he felt the need to create reasons for his attention, well that was painful for Vader.

His Master turned in his chair and Vader Immediately sank to one knee, head down in submission. Luke followed suit like a good son next to him. When he had first brought Luke back, the Emperor had been enraged that Vader had not brought him directly to him. He had torn Vader apart mentally and punished him severely. After many days he had come to an agreement that he would only let Vader keep Luke if he trained himself and only as a Sith and invest in Luke as only that and not his Father.

Fearing for both their lives, Darth Vader had agreed. His Master had said if he sensed any disobedience of any kind Vader would be punished. But nothing had come of that punishment, and Vader had grown to consider this threat to be of course empty. 

Now was their time. 

“Welcome my Apprentice. I see you have brought Skywalker to submit himself to me?”

“Yes my Master.” 

“Good. Goooood.” The Emperor walked up and Vader tilted his mask towards his son. 

The Emperor grabbed Luke harshly by the cheeks in a single clawed hand and raised it to meet his face. Luke kept his face as unemotional as Vader was sure was possible. “Quiet the beautiful young thing isn’t he, so very like his father. So strong. So brave. I am impressed with him.”

Palpatine circled Luke in a predator way. His fingers running through his hair possessiveness and suddenly he was grabbing Luke’s hair roughly and pulling the boys head up. Vader turned his head purposefully to watch. Fear gathering in his heart for his son’s welfare.

“Are you willing to submit to me as your new Master BOY.”he hissed. 

Luke gulped and looked at his father in fear and questioning. Palpatine let out a laugh and released his hair and came back around to his front, continuing to caress Luke’s hair and directed his hand back to Luke’s chin “Fear not your father will not hinder your growth as a Sith. I have him under my control, as I do you.” 

Vader felt rage in his soul at this. How dare he presume he was not a thread. With an Angry growl Vader went with a rush and lightsaber out towards Palpatine, determined to push him away from gripping the treasure that was his son. But he had only just pulled his lightsaber when Luke was screaming the loudest he ever had. 

Blood. Blood was everywhere. Luke’s entire Left foot was left behind where it had been. Pulled off like it as being pulled off by the root of where it attached to his leg. Vader’s mind filled with horror. The foot that was ripped off was the right, the same foot he had just stepped towards them. 

An evil cackle erupted from his Master's lip. Heard even above the loud pained screams of his son. “I see your loyalists truly are in question my apprentice. Fear not you will not be striking me down and having your son to yourself. For if you defy me he will feel the pain of every act of defiance as you can see.”

He stared in horror at his son bleeding out and back at the laughing evil man he called Master. His son… hurt because of him? How?!

“Ah… I see you are without words, how could this BE you ask. Well my apprentice it is very simple. You see you should never leave a spare body part lying around. You never KNOW who might pick it up and use it for our own means.” He lifted the glove off his hand, and there attached to the Emperor's wrist was Luke’s hand. Tanned and youthful. “You need not know the specifics my dear young apprentice. Follow me obediently and your son will be spared. Think or act in any way to defy me and you will suffer through him.”

He stared in horror at his son. All these times…. his son was being hurt because of his actions? All that pain had been real? Dark sithly magics he had not comprehended?! The sickness sunk in his stomach as he realized and whispered. “It’s… It’s all my fault.” 

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This story is for a Angst Bingo I am doing with some friends. The title is the prompt.
> 
> FATHER gave me some of my ideas, in particular Spell.
> 
> Thanks for reading!   
> Leave comments if able :)


End file.
